IS IT TRUE: March 16, 2012
IS IT TRUE that all of the teams that have serious local fan bases that played yesterday advanced in the NCAA basketball tournament yesterday?…that the only team well liked locally that did not advance was the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers who saw their Cinderella tournament run end at the hands of the Kentucky Wildcats?…that WKU put up a spirited fight against UK and beat the spread as a #16 seed facing a #1 seed?…that the most impressive victory of the night was Murray State’s thrashing of Colorado State setting up a second round matchup with Marquette?…that there is a high probability that the Indiana University Hoosiers and the UK Wildcats will be in a rematch of December’s instant classic at Bloomington?…that there will be lots of Red and Blue clothing in Evansville next weekend if that game materializes?
IS IT TRUE that several people have asked us why Robert Stadium was not considered as a training facility for the UE Purple Aces during the planning stages for the new “on campus” practice gym?…that while the new $3.5 Million gym may be nice, this may have been a decent opportunity to use Roberts for something constructive that many people and businesses have deemed worthy of their financial support?…that Roberts is really a very short walk from the campus and back in the day when the Aces were bringing home championships and having winning seasons that walk was made by many students to every game at Roberts?…that there is no walking to the Ford Center by UE students and it is not advisable due to the neighborhoods that have to be passed through making the trek?…that this season’s Aces achieved pretty much the exact things that last season’s team did so the idea that bricks and mortar translate into talent and wins has been debunked?…that a 16 win season is a 16 win season no matter where the games are played?…that attendance for the marquee games sold out both Roberts and Ford?…that as far as the other games are concerned the new arena made little difference in the average attendance?
IS IT TRUE that there are several members of the City Council and others who are actually doing some VETTING on the companies that Earthcare Energy announced in July that they had a license agreement with?…that as it seems as though the Winnecke Administration, GAGE, and some members of the Evansville City Council were really ready to loan Earthcare Energy $5 Million without disclosing any details about the basis of the business decision to the people of Evansville that private VETTING efforts are the only way for any VETTING results to be made available before another cram it through right now vote that is scheduled for March 26th?…that this rush to ratify reminds the CCO very much of the mad rush orchestrated by the Weinzapfel Administration to cram through a Johnson Controls deal that was not well understood and to cram through an approval for the Kunkel Group and Randall Lloyd to assume the McCurdy deal?…that maybe these deals will work out okay but the rush to sign was and is simply bad public policy?
IS IT TRUE that we encourage these private VETTORS to keep it up and post the results in any way that you can?…that if the City of Evansville can spend $40,000 to be told how many hotel rooms may be needed for a project that is already 4 years late that waiting a couple of months to ratify an attraction package for a start-up company should not jeopardize anything?…that it has been reported that the movers and shakers in the management team of Earthcare Energy are still working at their day jobs so they won’t be financially impacted either?…that talk of paying Hoosiers $38 per hour for jobs that are not yet defined to make a product that supposedly does not have a commercialized working model in place is not only premature it is delusional?…that we wonder how long that wage will be sustained if someone else buys a license and decides to assemble the units in Mexico for $3 an hour labor?…that one of the questions that the private VETTORS need to get the answer to is just how many licenses may be granted and what is the barrier to entry?…that only when that question is answered can a projection based on reality be put together?
IS IT TRUE that it is also time for the City of Evansville to start looking into the details of the verifiable and contractual cash flow that has a real probability with the Johnson Controls deal that the Weinzapfel Administration jammed through in its last days?…that one private analyst believes that the savings of $3.5 Million in years 0 and 1 are being double counted?…that we wonder what the heck year zero is?…that we expect that may mean the first year during which the gear is being installed?…that we really do wonder how one can save money before the money saving gear is in place?
Correction to your last paragraph: the double-counting of savings actually shows a Year -1 (” minus one”)and Year 0. The poster PhD-Financial-Analysis correctly noted yesterday that after eliminating the double-counting of savings, the projected NET savings are $ 689,000 over 20 years . . . which is .008 (8 tenths of 1 %) of the $ 79,700,000 lease payments over 20 years. The gross savings can only be confirmed on 45 % of the advertised savings, while of course, the Lease is 100% confirmed–those payments will be made. PUBLIC OUTRAGE, please !
The “public outrage” should have taken place at the voting machines last November with the removal of any office holder who voted for such misrepresentation!
Misrepresentation of projects, that is then picked up and passed on by a feckless media, is worse than the total lack of information to which we have become so accustomed.
The level of sophistication on this city council, which routinely makes decisions concerning millions in taxpayer dollars, leaves much to be desired.
At any rate, we will soon close the first quarter of 2012, and I have seen nothing to lead me to believe that it is anything but “business as usual” here in Evansville.
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Evansville Courier&Press
(November 15, 2011)
Jared Council
[snip]
The project is under a performance-based contract in which Johnson Controls is paid by the “guaranteed portion of the energy savings expected to result from the capital improvements,†according to a city news release.
The projects are expected to save $3 million annually Part of the savings come from eliminating payments for wireless air cards and revenues lost to outmoded water meters.
EWSU Interim Director Jim Garrard said no layoffs will result from abandoning the manual meter readings, and the seven workers currently assigned will be moved elsewhere.
[snip]
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Take a look at the document titled ‘Performance Contracting Project Development Agreement’. It is signed by City of Evansville CIO, Matt Arvay.
If Johnson Controls is doing this deal, especially the purported ‘free citywide wireless’ and the ‘smart meters’, then why is there a role for the IT Department at City of Evansville ? Where do the costs for the IT firm
Mark Rolley Consulting and the time spent by Matt Arvay fit into the proposal by Johnson Controls ?
Bottom line: the Johnson Controls project needs a lot more investigation. The involvement of the IT Department in this murky project needs a lot more light . . . the often-discussed and never-acted-upon IT Audit would be ESPECIALLY relevant to unearthing the precise role of the City’s IT Group, the costs they will incur in collaborating with Johnson Controls, and how those costs are recovered. And that assumes, of course, that it makes sense to do this project in the first place.
Here’s the link to the Johnson Controls documents:
https://city-countyobserver.com/2011/03/16/johnson-controls-docs-secured-by-foia-request/
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